A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights and similar rights whatsoever.
The present invention generally relates to information retrieval, and more particularity, to methods and systems to allow a user to access information from an information source.
On-line electronic information services are being increasingly utilized by individuals having personal computers to retrieve various types of information. Typically, a user having a personal computer equipped with a modem dials into a service provider, such as an Internet gateway, an on-line service (such an America On-line, CompuServer, or Prodigy), or an electronic bulletin board to download data representative of the information desired by the user.
The information from the service provider is typically downloaded in real-time (i.e., the information is downloaded contemporaneously with a request for the information). Examples of information downloaded in this manner include electronic versions of newspapers, books (i.e., an encyclopedia), articles, financial information, etc. The information can include both text and graphical in any of these examples.